Melee ~ Long road to no where

Firstly, I like this game a lot, especially the crafting, housing and decorations.
Since the last update though, I have noticed a massive rift between my two styles of builds/play styles, namely melee/heals and pure mage.
Is there a rework for melee in the pipeline?
Melee seems to require huge investments into dexterity.
Melee currently in my experience ( GM blades, 80 Pole arm, 80 bludgeon, 80 shield, 80 vital points ) seems far behind when compared to casting.

My attack spells never miss, and do high damage.
My melee attack skills miss often ( even on green con mobs ) burn through a lot of focus and have very low damage.

I can kill mobs that are orange con with spells that in no way can I even get close to killing with melee.
Trolls are a prime example.
Melee Vs Troll just get spam stomped, bashed, stunned, I have even been stun locked unable to stand (6-7 stomps with no cool down ), yet spells I can just slow them and dot them, range kill with spam arrows etc, heal through any boulder tosses easily.

Melee requires a huge amount of off tree skills to be effective a pure caster can just stand and nuke from range.

Melee a green con wolf in Deep Ravenswood will take longer than 2 minutes with a Pole arm and shield ( due to the misses ) with melee,
yet my caster build just 3-4 shots them with fire arrow and 3x obsidian arrow or 5x stone fist if I am lazy

Melee ends up with expensive repairs, even with 70-80 skill level in preventive durability damage.
I end up re crafting weapons just so I don't have to spend COTO to fix them.

Currently melee with what I have tested, seems like a huge disadvantage.
It is plain to see in PvP, how many melee?

I am curious to know how other melee builds are fairing since the last updates.
2 handed sword is severely below average compared to sword and shield builds atm, stat wise and damage wise.
I can get more damage and stats with MC and enchants on a sword and shield than I could ever hope from a 2 handed sword.

 

Just curious, what are your str/dex/int at this point.

 

i do better with a two hand sword crafted in all bronze than i do with sword and shield with enchants and buffs. I know this cause i went to enhance my twohand sword and broke it......so i ended up using long sword and shield til i could gather enough coppper to make another. Once i got the new sword made...not as good as the other i had but still good enough....i went back out and the whole time i was fighting mobs i didnt die once. Before with long/shield i died quite a bit. But like Roy asked above. It also depends on your stats....str/dex/int. Also your armor.....if you have combat buffs as well. If you are wearing mage specific armor it might not be compat with your weapon skills. When i make my armor or buy i try to balance between the two...if that makes sense

 

wow I might rework my Avatar into a Magic Caster problem is, I never played a Pure Magic Caster before T_T

 

You are a Spellsword then?

 

yes something like that but more on swords than spells...

 

Strength 107 ( my buffed melee stat )
Dex 65 ( unbuffed )
Intel 40 (unbuffed )

 

I had copper 2 handed +9

Now I use rounded shield +8
Copper long sword +9
Meteoric Plate +6
My killing time/downtime is better than 2 handed.
That's at GM blade with 60-80 level all blade skills and passives
Also shield gives block and shield stuns.

 

Melee/magic balancing is currently being worked on. Changing your build to the current power trend rather than playing how you want to may result in dissapointment.

 

I think you are correct.
Just bank my melee, build my pool wait for balances.
My spell casting even though way under skilled seems more effective at killing the enemy than my melee at the moment.
I can still level my DEx while casting, so will work on that.
Caster damage, then coupe de grace to finish works. Coupe can crit for over 300 when mobs at 20%
Earth magic works fine in plate mail.

 

When practiced against an opponent with 0 stats and armor, youll find magic attacks and melee attacks damage arent that different, with melee even being more for single hits than water, fire, and death. Air and Earth have a unique issue in that they both draw a damage bonus from 2 stats, while everything else only draws from mostly 1 stat.

 

Can you link me to a dev saying that magic is being rebalanced against melee? People always say around here when there's a complaint, "oh that's being worked on". I was told just a couple weeks ago that there was an aggro overhaul coming. Then I asked what the plans were for aggro during the r34 postmortem and I was told that portalarium considers aggro to be fine. I think there's a lot of wishful thinking around here.

 

One thing for sure
another 68 emotes will be in shop soon

 

Ok made some changes.

Strength 107
Dex 65
GM blades ( pole arms at 80 )
Meteoric plate mail
Defensive stance, Deflect, Earth embrace.
Healing grace

Quick test:
1 handed pole arm ( spear +7 ) + shield was using 250 focus / green con wolf in Deep Ravens wood. Many misses, low damage, almost 2 minutes to kill a wolf.

Switched to Earth magic ( stone fist x5 @ level 80 ) , Long sword +9, Shield +8, ~ hot bar with stone fist dynamic and blade skills, coupe de grace locked.
Kills wolf using 60 focus maximum in a matter of seconds

Sword was hitting around 80% time
Pole arm was hitting about 40% time

 

I agree with the title of this post. Any melee is a weak in this game.

 

I have made 5 posts on this with real stats. Its clear that the dev's what people to be mages... absolutely no doubt about it. They have not responded to a single post on it whether it be the weakness of blunt or the fact that melee has to use focus which is an int and mage derived stat.

I have been forced to focus on Earth magic myself and change my GM blunt skills into secondary use. I hit with blunt on average at like 60 hp and 120 crit, my earth obs arrow will hit for 120+ and up to 240 crit.

the great thing is that my earth spells hit 100% and I wiff melee constantly.

Its utterly ridiculous.

This is actually shat that people will quit this game over in a lot of large numbers but considering they have no response in many months about this.. they dont care. If I hadn't put 10K US dollars in this game already I would have left long ago.

In fact.. they nurfed melee crits even more recently since my complaint.. it makes no fooking sense.

As you can tell.. this is my soap box

 

Seriously?
Wow these guys need a PR person to handle posts like this then.
Exactly my findings with earth magic.
Now I know why I see full plate /chain users running around with shields and wands, no sword
Melee = borked

 

they got their money up front they do not care if you leave or not.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if obsidian arrow gets a nerf. I am seeing people doing over 300 crits with it since it ignores armor and is based off strength. So they stack strength.

 

Perhaps, but due to the strength stat stacking it is a one trick pony.
This works well with melee spell sword build as earth is almost designed to be used with melee/heavy armour builds. The passives especially.
I have my obsidian arrow at lvl 80, I have 107 strength, 99.99% of my attacks do around 50-75 damage, maybe a crit for 155, I think in all the weeks I have played I've seen a big number crit once or twice.
Getting 300 crit from obsidian arrow would be only a hardcore gamer who has ground some serious stats up. I play a lot, and my strength is not even half way to getting that kind of critical score.
I know only a handful of guys who could even do this and the build would be such a one trick pony, not even worth it.
People cheer when they get a 150 crit with obsidian arrow lol.

I know many far more effective ways to kill big hp mobs ( I wouldn't be using obsidian arrow )